


Forduary 2019 Week 2 - Invention

by redwoodroots



Series: Forduary 2019 [1]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Forduary 2019, Forduary 2019 Week 2 invention, Invention, Kidd is an actual real person no lie, also seagulls, seagulls happened, some historical research happened
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-04
Updated: 2019-03-04
Packaged: 2019-11-12 01:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18000998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redwoodroots/pseuds/redwoodroots
Summary: Stan and Ford escape their Ma and head for the Stan O' War - where a certain supernatural surprise awaits them!





	Forduary 2019 Week 2 - Invention

**Author's Note:**

> HEWWO!!! This year's Forduary fics are linked like the chapters in a book! Reading the first one will give you all the juicy feels you need for this one! 
> 
> Fair warning: this one has SEAGULLS.

Ford groaned. He and Stan had fallen asleep in the bottom bunk. It was now morning, his back ached, and the ice packs and punctured, soaking his shirt and pant leg. He nudged Stan.

“Nnn.”

“Stan. Wake up.”

“Wake me when it's Saturday.”

“It _is_ Saturday.”

“Wake me when I'm dead.”

Ford snorted and crawled over his brother's legs, wincing as his ankle throbbed. In spite of the ice, it was still incredibly sensitive. When he was upright, he leaned against the bed frame and pushed his brother with his knee. “Stan, c'mon. Let's grab some breakfast before Ma gets up.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

They both knew that if they didn't get up, they'd get roped into Ma's Crystal Ball act. It involved a small cloth booth she wheeled on and off the boardwalk. She didn't exactly have a permit for that, though, so she only did it on the weekends, when she could blend in with all the other booths – and so Stan and Ford would be around to stand watch for cops. And so they could grab the booth and run if the fuzz did show up. Which had happened. Often.

Stan sat up with a groan, rubbing his ribs.

“You okay?” Ford asked, pulling a fresh vest over his head.

“Peachy. Think I busted a rib.”

“Are you still up for the Stan O’ War?”

“If I’m not, I can just hang out and watch you do nerd things.”

Ford snorted and turned to toss his dirty vest in the hamper. 

Suddenly he stopped short, staring out the window. There was a dark alley across the street, directly across from their window, and for a second he could've sworn he saw Crampelter in the shadows...

“Whassa matter?” Stan asked behind him, and Ford jumped.

“Oh, I –”

“Whoa, check out that fog!”

Now that he mentioned it, Ford noticed pale ribbons of mist curling into the street from behind their house. The beach itself would probably be covered with it.

He sighed. “Maybe we should –”

“KIIIII-IIIIIDS!” Ma bellowed from downstairs. “ARE YOU AWAKE YET?!”

“Run!”

Stan grabbed the front of Ford's vest and bolted for the door, nearly tripping his feet in a bed sheet.

They made it down the hallway, into the bathroom, out the tiny window and climbed as fast as the could down the branches of their half-dead ailanthus altissima. Mist wafted around them, the peeling bark slick with it under Ford's fingers. 

“YOU'D BETTER BE AWAKE BECAUSE I CAN'T YELL ANY LOUDER AND YOU DISAPPEARED THE LAST THREE WEEKENDS IN A ROW!”

Instantly Ford and Stan let go and jumped to the ground. Ford caught himself neatly, with almost no weight on his ankle, but Stan gave a nasty grunt of pain.

“Ah-HA!”

Ford grabbed the bed sheet still wrapped around Stan's ankle, threw it over their shoulders and ran for the beach, Stanley panting right behind him.

The mist muffled their noise and obscured their vision in twenty feet in every direction. They ran until the hard cement path behind their house gave way to almost chewy asphalt, then soft sand. Finally they slowed to a walk, and Ford pushed the sheet off his head to his shoulders. This close to the water, the mist was thicker than ever, surrounding them in a bubble ten feet wide.

“That was close,” Ford panted. 

Stan grunted and Ford nearly collapsed as his brother suddenly leaned on him with nearly all his body weight. Ford opened his mouth to complain and realized Stan was wheezing and clutching his ribs. He sighed and pulled Stan's arm and the bed sheet over his shoulders, distributing the weight more evenly. 

“You alright?” he asked. 

Stan gave him a thumbs-up, his face still strained.

“Just hang on. You can sit and rest at the Stan O' War.”

They started down the beach, although the mist made it difficult to see beyond 10 feet in all directions. It swirled around them, prickling their skin with its infinite icy droplets, blurring the world around them to wavering silhouettes. Even the pounding waves and ever-present gulls were muffled. The barest breath of cool wind made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

Ford grinned. Cryptids loved conditions like these!

“You're...doing that 'let's-go-monster-hunting' look,” Stan said shortly. “If you're leading me in circles...just to try and catch a thooloo or something –”

“ _Cthulhu_ , Stanley, and I know where I'm going!”

“Ford, there is literally no one out here but us.”

“There's a guy right over there,” Ford said, nodding to a man's silhouette on their right. “Trust me, I know what I – there, told you!”

The silhouette of their ship rose out of the mist. They'd finally finished the bow of the boat last week, the wheelhouse gleamed dully from the deck, and the mast rose elegantly into the thickening mist, the cries of seagulls giving the impression it was already at sea. 

Ford squinted. “Stan...does the mast seem... _taller_ to you?”

“Huh?”

Suddenly the mist cleared from the top of the mast and Ford's jaw dropped. There was an actual, moving, talking _human head_ sitting on top of the mast!

“GET AWAY YE SEA RATS!” the head bellowed, its black hair a tangled mess around its pocked skin, glaring bloody murder at the circling gulls. “I'll flay yer feathers from yer skin! I'll put a curse on every egg! I'll OW OW OW OW!” 

One of the seagulls dive-bombed the head and shot straight through it, going beak-first through its eye and out the back. It was a ghost head! And apparently the dive hadn't actually disturbed the head in the least, because it was still on the mast yelling at the top of its nonexistent lungs!

Ford opened his mouth to shout up questions – and then Stan abruptly yanked him to the ground, hard. 

“Watch out!” 

He looked up in time to see the man from earlier stumbling through the surrounding fog. But it wasn't a man at all – it was a headless spectral corpse, its 17th-century coat soaking wet, its bloodless fingers outstretched. 

Ford leaped to his feet with a shout of excitement. 

“Stan! Stanley are you seeing this!?”

“Seeing, yes! Liking, no!”

The ghost head glanced down and gasped. “Live 'uns! Get this flock o' sea vultures away from me face!”

“Just a second, I have to make a sketch!” Ford eagerly patted his pockets for his pen and notebook. He'd never seen this kind of manifestation before! 

“Oh aye, just skitch away, it's only Captain Kidd, he doesn't need his head in the afterlife apparently!”

“What?” Ford asked, just as Stan said, “You're not Captain Kidd.” 

Ford turned in surprise, pausing his sketch to stare at his brother. “You know him?”  
“No, I know Captain Kidd and I'm saying that's not him. Captain Kidd was hung for piracy, not – you know – _chopped_.” 

“A bit o' sensitivity, if ye don't mind!” the head snapped. “And I'm nowt a pirate! It was _one ship_ and anyway me crew burned the lot of it to hide their own crimes so there's no proof either way!”

“Well that does sound like something a pirate would say,” Stan mused. 

Ford gave a snort. “It sounds like something _you_ would say.”

“My point exactly.”

“Will ye just – ye mangy harpies! - will ye just get me down afore these vile beasts pluck out me eyes!”

“Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen, pal,” Stan said. “I've got busted ribs and Mr. Noodle Arms here couldn't do a pull-up to save his life.”

“He's right, I – hey!”

Kidd dodged another seagull attack, pirouetting on the point of his chin. “For the love of – I'll give ye each a piece o' me treasure if ye get me down!”

“DONE!” Stan scrambled up the side of the boat, dashed to the mast and started climbing. But he hadn't made it more than a couple of feet before his face twisted with pain and he slid back down, landing hard. “Ow, ow, ribs are a thing. Ford, your up. Got a ladder or something?”

Ford looked up from drawing Kidds' nose. “Ladders wouldn't work, our mast is too tall, but I _might_ be able to rig a makeshift crane using –”

“Stop that!” 

They looked up. A seagull darted in, grabbed a damp lock of black hair between its teeth and pulled. Kidd snapped its teeth at it and the gull dropped the hair with a startled cry. 

“That's incredible!” Ford said excitedly. “Why do you think your face is incorporeal and yet your hair is tangible? Could it be because hair takes longer to decompose? Do you know if your corpse still has its hair? And why is your body –”

“IF YOU'RE DONE SPECULATIN' ON MY PHANTOM PHYSIOLOGY!”

“Right, right!” Ford stuffed his notebook back into his pocket. “Stan, shoot the seagulls away while I go grab a couple of things from school. And keep an eye on...that.” He jabbed a thumb at Kidd's body, which was currently making sand angels. 

“Fine, fine.” Stan loaded his shotgun again and took aim. 

Kidd glared down. “Watch where ye point that thing! If ye knock owt so much as _one tooth_ –”

Ford left them to their argument and hurried off, across the beach and back to the street. The mist thinned as he went, and it seemed to stop completely once it reached the sidewalk, which Ford found absolutely fascinating. He made a mental note of his exact latitude and longitude, then ran for the school as fast as he could, ignoring the soreness in his ankle. 

He reached the school in ten minutes, slipped through the open space under the bleachers, then went straight for the back of the science building. As he'd suspected, Crampelter and his crew had placed a good number of dents and dings into the carriage of his satellite project. Luckily he'd made a much sturdier shell this time, and both the carriage and its wheels still looked functional. He picked the lock on the auto lab – Stan had shown him how after he'd been locked in several times – and grabbed several long pieces of metal and a few hand tools, including a portable blow torch. Then he tied everything onto the satellite and wheeled it back to the beach as quickly as he could. 

The mist on the beach had thinned by the time he returned, enough so that Ford could almost see the street from the shore. The sand around the boat was now littered with limping seagulls, who glared sullenly at Ford as he shoved the satellite awkwardly over the sand. 

“Sixer!” Stan dropped his slingshot and hurried to help. “Whatever you do, can you do it fast? I don't think Kidd's doing so great, he's been dead quiet for the last two minutes. Well not _dead_ dead – actually yeah that kind of dead too –”

“The mist, lads,” Kidd called down. Ford looked up. Kidd's head almost looked like a soggy cake, the ghostly flesh sagging on his bones, his tangled hair drooping. “The mist is falling...”

“Oi!” Stan shouted. “Treasure first, Death the Sequel later!” 

“Stay calm, I have a plan!” Ford called up. Then he turned to Stan and shoved a metal beam at him. “Alright, you're going to help me make a remote-controlled aerial bucket lift, similar to the ones used for electrical line maintenance. Lay these beams and lay out perpendicularly to each other and – perpendicular, Stan, not parallel!”

“They sound the same!”

“Never mind, just screw them together here and here. Tell me when you're done, I'll need to make some adjustments in the satellite carriage to create space for the internal ball bearing and it has to match the width of the boom exactly. Can you grab the electrical kit from inside the Stan O' War? I'll need the spare wires for the remote control. After that...”

 

Stan squinted into the sun. The mist had almost completely burned off, and the noonday sun was high overhead. 

“Left. More left. More. Okay, now straight up, like three feet forward...”

Ford pressed the remote slowly and carefully. The remote was rather quick work and therefore temperamental, so he was handling it while the Stan squinted into the noonday sun to give directions. At this point Kidd's head was little more than a shapeless translucent sponge, and his body was slouched motionless in the shadow of the Stan O' War. 

On Stanley's instruction, he slowly extended the articulated beams, then flipped the switch to open the claw at the end. It wasn't so much a claw as it was two pieces of metal that could be opened and shut like a pair of tweezers, but it would do the job. 

“Hang on.” Stan grabbed his slingshot and fired at a stray seagull. “Man these guys are persistent. Okay, you're clear.” 

Ford closed the claw, maneuvered it a foot higher, than swung it down into the shadows as fast as he dared. Kidd's head was little more than a grayish blob swinging from straggly black strings. But the second the head touched its body, it practically inflated, literally fleshing itself out again, cheeks, nose, eyes, hair.

“Aaaaahh...” Kidd's eyes reached up to prod his own cheeks. “That's the stuff, lads.”

Ford stared in fascination. “Incredible. How would you describe the sensations in your face before, during, and after it was reattached to your body? How was that related to the mist? Or is it that you're simply sensitive to sunlight, since you're currently standing in the shade? Theoretically, if you carried an umbrella, could you –”

“Whoa, hold up, aren't we forgetting something?” Stan held out his hand. “Pay up, pirate! Stanley's got some impulse buys to make!”

Kidd grumbled under his breath, but he stood up and started digging into his pockets. Ford blinked. The sun was shining off of one of Kidd's buttons. Then he realized what that meant and raised a hand in warning – just as Kidd dropped something into Stan's hand and vanished in the noonday sun. 

Ford stared at the spot with dismay. “He's _gone!_ But I still had questions!”

“Same here, look at this!” Stan held up a single ancient coin, so smudged with muck and rotted kelp it barely looked like money at all. Although...

“We could probably analyze the muck on it for ectoplasmic residue,” Ford said hopefully, leaning in to inspect it. “Perhaps even take some samples? I'd love to test my hypothesis about Kidd's sensitivity to mist vs sunlight.”

“Focus, Sixer! I am a full treasure chest short here! What the heck am I supposed to do with just one coin? Buy crummy used car?! I might as well just bury it right back in the sand!” He chucked it at the ground. 

Instantly one of the nearest seagulls snapped it up and flew off. 

“Wh-HEY! GIMME BACK THAT MONEY, SONNY!”

Stan sprinted after the thieving bird, alternately shouting and yelping at his ribs. Ford quickly collapsed the lift, maneuvered it into the Stan O' War for safekeeping, and ran to catch up. If he really could collect some samples off of that coin, he might be the first to collect hard evidence of ectoplasmic entities. Not to mention they could use the lift later to make painting the Stan O' War that much easier. In a strange way, Ford was glad he hadn't gotten a chance to complete his satellite. His latest invention would surely come in handy later!

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, it will, Ford. But not the way you're hoping...


End file.
